Internet backbone stood up to DoS attack

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) have issued their report on the Denial of Service (DoS) attack against two of the DNS root servers in early February, finding that the Internet's backbone stood up well to the pressure.

The attack, which originated from the Asia/Pacific region, targeted 2 of the root servers that have not yet had DNS Anycast, which distributes the load around the root servers, applied to them.

ICANN said:

"The Internet sustained a significant distributed denial-of-service attack, originating from the Asia-Pacific region, but stood up to it."

Had Anycast been applied, it's fairly certain that there would have been absolutely no impact - rather than the minimal impact reported. ICANN plans to roll it out to the root servers where it's not already in place:

"With the Anycast technology apparently proven, it is likely that the remaining roots--D, E, G, H and L--will move over soon," ICANN said. The letters refer to the five of the 13 official root DNS servers that do not yet have Anycast installed.

ICANN has yet to determine the exact techniques used to launch the attack, but is investigating further.